Sometimes when I think of love I hear a heavy voice repeat “There’s a good doctor up the street.” And either it seems I am hard at hearing Or stupid perhaps or terribly fearing. For its late of a winter night and raining With cry of wind; or is something complaining? One lamp in the street and a leafless tree And a thing is moving that frightens me, With fingers that hover about my nape A shape like a hand and yet not a shape. Now all that we had in the past is over Each lover’s alone, the love from the lover. No comforting hand for me in the gloom, No voice of mine in the darkened room. Where is the music and where are the songs? For love has crept off ashamed of his wrongs. Poor love has gone off to rail at passion, And he will not wait for the night to fashion Out of pain and fear and anguish and danger, A lover strange with his love a stranger, And yet, as they were at the opera Incredibly close and familiar, Incredibly close as once on the river When each is a gift and each is a giver. Incredibly close and all they have hoarded Of life and of love in this moment rewarded. Rewarded! Has love in the darkness heard Of the little lost shadow, the small lost third? Love is returning--to find them alone, And if love be a sinner, who casts a stone? Shattered and beaten and blindingly sure Of love and themselves and strong to endure He finds them, by pain more lastingly crowned Than ever by joy and by laughter were bound Happier lovers and lovers untaunted By the shameful cries these lovers have haunted. If this be their love, who out of the pit Being a devil challenges it? In heaven assayed, in hell-fire priced Who casts the first stone? Not I, says Christ. You will not wonder nor will you reprove If I think of this, when I think of love. IV. Sometimes when I think of love I remember how you stooped down from heaven, Because they had told you I was unforgiven, To take half of the storm, and share the stripe An angel in hell with her guttersnipe. I am thinking then of your lighted face And your hands and the way your fingers lace As you sit quietly reading a book. Perhaps I move and you suddenly look Across the room and the soul in your eyes Is bright as it looks with the old surprise Changing for ever, for ever the same And you break my heart as you speak my name. You must not wonder, you will not reprove If sometimes I dare not think of love. OLD. So old, so changed, and odd Even as God, I am, so odd and old, That I am bitter cold In heart and limb Like him. I might in heaven be, Even as He. So lonely and so rare Beyond the utmost prayer My spirit weighs, Dead days.